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Baby Noah James Durham arrived September 23rd at 7:17 am. Weighing 7lbs.10oz. and 20″ long. He is absolutely perfect and is such a gift from the Lord.

It has been a long and emotional few days, but God has been there every step of this process. From the time that we arrived in Nebraska we really got a chance to hang out with the birth family and get to know them really well, which was amazing and really helped both us and them to feel comfortable, but it also made us feel connected to them so saying goodbye was harder than I thought it would be.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am and they took birth mom back immediately and Noah was born 45 minutes later. She didn’t want to see him right away so they took him to the nursery where we were excitedly waiting to see him. The nurse brought in a pink, crying, healthy little guy who was so perfect and beautiful that our hearts just melted and we were in awe of such and AWESOME GOD that we serve who is so FAITHFUL.

I have been inducing lactation so I was able to nurse him right away and he is a great eater! Since I am nursing the hospital gave us a room of our own and we were able to have him the whole time in our room. This was a total blessing and a detail that I didn’t know was even going to happen. I just love how God provides all of our needs, even the ones we don’t know we need.

After Noah was born we had to wait 48 hours till the birth mom is able to sign the papers over to us. That 48 hours had its ups and downs for us and was way more emotional than I expected. But at about 10:30 on September 25th Noah James was signed over to us to raise and to love for the rest of his life.

The next step is just waiting for all the paperwork to be complete, which hopefully won’t take to long. We have loved our time here but we are ready to get back to our home.

The only thing that could cause any problem at this point is the birth father has 1 more business day till his rights are relinquished. So we pray that all of this goes through and that we don’t hear from him.

This has been an amazing journey and such a blessing! Our hearts are full of joy and love for the precious life that has entered the world.

Since our last blog we landed in Denver, got in a car and drove the 6 hours to Nebraska. We are staying in a beautiful guest house of a friend of ours on a ranch and it is truly a huge blessing. So peaceful and relaxing out in corn country.

Birth mom and baby are still doing fine, she is having consistent contractions, but baby has not decided to make his way into the world yet so at this point the c-section is still scheduled for Monday morning. So we get to spend a little bit more time here in Nebraska than we expected, but it actually has been such a huge blessing in disguise. We have been able to meet with birth mom and her family twice since we have been here and it has been amazing! God is so good and knows exactly what is needed. We have been able to really get to know her, see where she lives, and introduce who we are. As well as being able to share the love of Jesus with her in small ways.

We are going to hang out again with her tomorrow and possibly sunday too. If we would have shown up at the hospital without this time of getting to know her it would have been really awkward so of course once again the Lord knows what he is doing and what is best.

It looks like little Noah James Durham is coming into the world a little sooner than expected…ONLY problem…We’re still in Florida…Actually, we are writing this blog on the airplane while Hope is watching Curious George, on our way to Denver, CO. We land at 8:30 PM. From there we are borrowing my parents car and driving to Nebraska. Late Night ahead.

Today I got a call at about 2:00 from our birth moms sister, Heather. My heart kind of dropped when I saw the call and hesitantly answered it. She proceeded to tell me that her sister was having contractions every 4 minutes and was at the hospital. This is about 5 days sooner than the expected C-section date. So we are still in Florida not Nebraska. The doctor ended up sending her home and said that the C-section was going to happen very soon. Most likely tomorrow!!! I immediately changed our flights (thankfully it didn’t cost anything!) to fly in today. As soon as we arrive we will hop in a car, drive the 5 hours to Nebraska and hope to be there by 3 A.M.

There is so much excitement in this process for us! With the excitement, has come the struggle not to be anxious or stressed with the last minute changes and the unknowns. Pray for the birth mom that all would go smooth with her C-section and for Noah to be healthy. Also pray for us to be a light to the birth mom.

We are so thankful to all our our friends and family who are supporting us in this process. Your prayers, encouragement have been great pillars for us. Thank you to for all that have helped us afford to do this. We are here because of many people that love us and that is blessing

I feel like this process has been very slow up until about a week ago. We are so happy that we have a lead with a possible birth mother!!!! So exciting!!! I can’t go into very many details at this point because it is so up in the air and a lot of things could fall through, but Honestly, this whole process if very risky until the adoption papers are signed and we are holding our baby in our arms. But we are still so excited and hopeful for this match! And I can’t wait to tell you everything!

This is very quick so we need to get some stuff done!

Step 1. Complete our home study… This is happening on Sunday the 11th at 2:00pm. So pray that it will go well and we will have a great visit with our social worker.

Step 3. Find 2 adoption attorneys…. DONE! (birth mother is in a different state, so we have to pay for two…UGHH)

Step 4. Pay for the adoption attorneys! … Not done. This part is about $9,500 (AHHH!) that we will need to have by next week. Crazy, but God has done bigger things than this and we are just trusting in him to provide.

Step 5. Pray, pray, pray. Actually this should be step 1. !!! Pray for the possible birth mom, for that sweet baby, and for all the finances to come in for us. And pray for God to just be in the middle of this whole thing. To lead us and guide our steps.

FYI: After our home study is complete we can apply for a grant and hopefully cover some of the costs. (I know that I might talk about money a lot, so sorry if I do but it definitely has been the biggest concern for us and God is truly stretching us in this area of trusting him.)

I hope to be posting more info soon, but in the mean time thanks for praying!!!

I have learned that adopting takes a lot of time and a lot of money, but of course the reward in the end is so worth it!

You may know me as Emily Copeland Durham, Professional Wakeboarder for the past 15 years. I am still in the sport of wake boarding, competing and coaching and enjoying the lake life. This sport is such a huge part of my life and one of the best parts about it is the friendships that I have made. And now I am so thankful to say my friends are graciously donating their old /new wakeboards and gear to help us raise money for our adoption.

Hi, I’m Emily and Kevin is my husband. We have been married for 10 years and We have a little girl named Hope who was born in 2009. Our lives are so blessed and we have much to be thankful for. The only missing piece to our puzzle is more children. You see, we have tried and tried and tried for the past 3 years to conceive and it just hasn’t happened for us. In fact our daughter, Hope, is a complete miracle and according to the doctors shouldn’t really even exist. But God knew what we needed and He gave us sweet Hope Noelle who melts our hearts daily.

About 8 months ago we began discussing the idea of adoption. I always knew it was something that I liked but always thought it’s great for “those families” and had a lot of respect “those people” but never really thought it would be for me, and I never thought we could afford it. Crazy me… I think I think too much. Because, God worked in me and in Kevin and we got this longing inside of us to adopt that we can’t really explain. And we are SO EXCITED!!! The whole affording it side of things still scares me a little bit, but if God brought us to this point I know He will provide every step of the way. Plus, there can never be too high of a price tag on a precious child. Look at our example… God gave his only Son Jesus to die on the cross for my dirty sins and paid the huge ransom for my life. He paid the ultimate price for my freedom… freedom from death and eternal separation from Him. And what’s even more amazing is that God calls me his daughter. The bible says that He adopted me as a child of His very own. (john1:12) And that I am an heir to All that is His. (romans 8:17)

We see what God calls us and what He did for us and now we have the chance to share our love and ultimately the love of Jesus with a sweet baby boy or girl. And call them our own and allow them to share our name and be an heir to everything that is ours. Such a sweet picture of the gospel.

Details about our adoption…

Domestic Adoption, Our agency is Embraced By Grace, We are adopting Under 6 months, Any race (color or ethnicity), boy or girl is fine.

How long till we get a baby you may ask?

Well, we are in the process of getting our home study completed, taking some adoption classes, reading books and making a profile. When all of that is complete we begin to wait. That wait could be days, months or even years…. It’s all a guessing game, but God knows the perfect time.